Alice

Demos

• Interactive– Eat the Bunny (Lee)

• Movie– Halloween Greeting Card

Alice.org

• Visual programming environment• Storytelling/movies• Game

programming

Alice.org

• Makes it easy to do 3D movies and interactive animations

• Fun and intuitive programming model– you can see the objects you are programming

• Highly visual programming environment– don't have to memorize syntax

• Why the name Alice?– she's the central character in Lewis Carroll’s

classic children's story Alice in Wonderland

Alice

• FREE! http://www.alice.org • Load and run a world• Names ending in .a2w are Alice programs• a2w is an abbreviation for alice 2 world • Two kinds of animations

– Movie: passive user watches the animation – Interactive: active user interacts with keyboard and mouse

• Chapter 1http://faculty.harrisburgu.net/~paris/cis120/alice_reading_1.pdf

• Chapter 2http://faculty.harrisburgu.net/~paris/cis120/alice_reading_2.pdf

Basic Concepts in Alice

• Virtual world: an animation is implemented in Alice as a virtual world

• Object: basic entity in Alice that has features. – Dimensions and directions: each object in Alice has

• Dimensions: height, width, depth• Directions: up, down, forward, back, left, right

– Center of an object: at the center of mass

• Objects can be retrieved from– Local gallery, or– Web gallery

Basic Concepts in Alice (cont)

• Distance: distance between two objects is measured from the centers

• Location: in a 3-D space, described by a triplet (x,y,z). The center of the ground is at (0,0,0)

• Animation: you develop a set of commands (methods) for each of the object in your world to interact with each other, creating an effect of animation

Objects

Objects• objects

• In Alice, an object is (usually) visible and it– has a name – may have sub-parts that are also objects – has properties such as width, height, color, location – can perform methods (actions) on command – has functions that allow programs to obtain information

about the object

Objects• Three dimensions: height, width, depth • Six degrees of freedom (types of movement)

– 3 moving:• forward/back • left/right • up/down

– 3 turning:• roll: sideways

– around forward back axis

• pitch: up/down • yaw: left/right

Objects

• Center– Of mass:

– On ground:

– Where it is held

Storyboard and Scenes

Scene Number:

Sketch

Description:

Sound:

Text:

Alice

• Tutorial

• Start with Tutorial 1

• Shows you how to use the program

A Whole New World

• File > New World • Templates tab • double click desired template

Add Objects

• Click on “Add Objects” pick from gallery

Object Parts

• Objects may be composed of parts– they are accessible through the object

browser (upper left)

Save your world

• File > Save World

• Saves as .a2w file

• Save FREQUENTLY– Animation is processor intensive, can crash

What you can do…

Storytelling Alice:• Say, think• Walk to, Walk offscreen• Walk • Sit On• Lie on• Kneel• Fall Down• Stand Up• Straighten• Look at• Look• Turn to face, Turn away from• Turn• Touch• Keep Touching

Generic Alice:• Move• Turn• Roll • Resize• Play Sound• Move to• Move toward, Move away from• Orient to• Turn to Face, point at• Set point of view to• Set Pose• Stand up• Move at speed, turn at speed, roll at

speed• Constrain to face, Constrain to point at

Caitlin Kelleher

Alice Techniques

• The mouse is used to approximately position objects in the scene

• Camera navigation is used to set the camera point of view

• Object drop-down menu used for many things including– resizing objects – more precisely position objects in the scene

• Quad view is used to position one object relative to another object

• 2-D text:http://faculty.harrisburgu.net/~paris/cis120/alice_tips.pdf

Alice Code Java Code

Alice is “real coding”

The Future: Alice v3.0

• Been in development for almost a year; will release in 2008.

• Driven by Caitlin Kelleher’s findings about storytelling – make movies (or videogames)

• Real Java– Alice v3.0 is a Java IDE, based on eclipse– will see real Java (if you choose)– Drag & Drop or type -> it’s up to you!

• Insanely high production values: as good as real video games

• We are developing a textbook along with the system– Just as we did with Alice v2.0– Wanda Dann, Steve Cooper, Randy Pausch and Don Slater

• EA has given us $300,000* and permission to use the characters and animations from “The SimsTM 2” in Alice v3.0

The First Public Demo ofAlice v3.0 with the SimsTM!

This scene was rendered in Alice v3.0